Plused
by SoupManOrbit
Summary: In the world of Pokemon, despite humanity's ever-progressing knowledge, vast portions of the planet they inhabit still remain undiscovered. This has led to many individuals of all species to hunt for these novel lands, whether for the fame it brings, the desire to explore exotic lands, or for some, as an escape from their past. This is a story of one of such crews.
1. The Storm Before The Calm

**Chapter 1: The storm before the calm**

"Come on! We can't let the mainsail detach," shouted the voice of a young male standing in the doorway between the ships cabin and the deck. As the man made his way towards the mast, two small tan-colored mice ran past him and sprinted through the dense rainfall pounding the metal surface of the ship. The pair managed to grab hold of the rapidly uncoiling rope which kept the sail attached and, despite their small size, managed to keep the cable from escaping any further. The slightly younger of the two, a male Minun named Max, slipped as he tried stepping back with the wire, causing him to fall off the ship and down into the choppy, black ocean beneath. Max prepared himself to be lost to the freezing water below but instead found himself suspended above, his arm had been grabbed and he was now being pulled back up onto the ship. Now on solid ground, he faced the Pokemon which had once again saved him, a female Plusle named rose.

"Th- thanks," he managed to force out. Rose looked at him with a soft criticism in her eyes, looking as if she was about to say something before getting interrupted.

The captain of the ship, a human named Lucas who was somewhere in his early 20's, had ran up to them to grab hold of the rope which had almost freed itself completely. "What happened? Are you both alright," Lucas asked worriedly as he started pulling the cable back.

Max scrambled to his feet, giving off a shaky nod as he tried to get over his near-death experience.

"That's good to hear, I need you two to quickly wake the others then remove the battery from the engine," the captain spoke.

The pair once again nodded in unison before scampering along the length of the boat and into the cabin where all the Pokemon slept. Max quickly ran to the bed of a sleeping Minccino by the name of Landen. The Minun stuck his paw to the side of the unconscious Pokemon's body and channeled some of his electricity through his arm. As always this worked like a charm and the normal type Pokemon calmly stood up and stretched out his body before staring at him silently.

Max, knowing that the Minnocino was rather withdrawn, spoke first. " I- I- er… I mean Lucas needs you right away, were sailing straight through a storm."

Landen, without so much as a gesture of acknowledgment, calmly walked out of the room and into the stormy weather on deck.

_"Well that was awkward…" _the Minun thought to himself as Rose walked up next to him and reminded, "We gotta go get the battery before it gets short-circuited in the rain.

Max once again found himself following the orders of another and nodded his head, following her out to the front of the boat.

Once they reached the helm of the ship, the pair walked carefully along the slick surface of the vessel in order to reach the engine compartment on the front. The minun, despite having done this task several times before, felt very uneasy as a result of his brief run-in with death only minutes prior. As he walked he could see Rose constantly looking back to check on him. In response, Max tried to make himself look as steady and secure as possible, something that the waves crashing against the boat and splashing against him didn't make easy.

"Ok it's right over there," the Plusle spoke, point her hand towards a rectangular bump in the frame of the ship. "You get on one side all get the other and help me lift up the cover."

The blue pokemon nodded.

"...and Max, pllleeeaaassee don't send yourself into the sea this time."

The Minun had to force himself not to reply with a scowl and instead pushed his paw into a small slot next to the metal lid and, with Roses help, he was able to lift it and place it to the side. The pair then stared into the chasm, revealing the large cylindrical beast that gave off a vicious hum inside. Max reached his arm out to touch the battery, immediately feeling electricity ground itself through his body on contact. After removing all the cables connecting the battery to the ship's electronics, the pair hoisted the device out of the compartment and onto the floor. Rose then promptly sat atop the object to prevent it from sliding, and from her seat, she helped Max restore the cover to its proper position.

"We got it, now let's get off of here before the boat launches us off," the Plusle joked. Max, however, was aware of the real possibility of this, especially now that all the lights have been shut off except for a few dim navigation beacons.

Despite this, Max still helped with taking the battery inside, lifting it up on one side while Rose carried the other and down the length of the ship. Once they were safely inside, they let down the piece of equipment onto the floor of the passageway with Max sitting down on a couch in the hallway. The Minun had been shaking heavily since they had entered, a result from the cold air of the cabin brushing against his doused fur. Rose must have taken notice of this because the second she took a look at him the red mouse pokemon disappeared into their living cabin. He was just about to go follow her but before he could even finish that thought, she had already returned holding a blanket in her paw. Without hesitation she jumped up onto the couch with him and place the blanket on him, leaving Max to look at her with a starry-eyed expression.

Max, feeling slightly embarrassed, attempted to hide it by stuttering out a reply, "T- Thank y- you, you're n- not cold?"

"Only a little," she replies while shaking her fur dry, "but I think I'll be fine."

"_Fine…" _he began thinking, _"you've always been fine all your life… it was your idea to go on this stupid voyage that's almost gotten me killed so many times before, but I guess it was either go with you or be left with nothing once again, and there was no way I would ever want to go back to that."_

Rose sat down next to him, looking into his eyes with a slightly confused expression. "Are you alright you look a little… out of it.",

Max thought his words over for a second before providing a response, "it's nothing jus-"

The Pokemon's speech was cut off by a scorbunny by the name of Jae running into the hallway, his fur, as expected, was drenched. "What are you two doing in here, Lucas has been waiting for you to return to him, he thought you might have been lost to the storm."

"We- we were j-". Max started, once again being cut off before finishing his stuttering.

" We were juuuussst," Rose began, "taking a short break for some cover from the rain."

"You both know I hate the rain more than the two of you combined but this is what you signed up for so let's go! We have work to do!"

The Minun, still far from dry, couldn't help but notice how Jae bounced with fiery energy at every word, the sort of motivation he wishes he had in the face of danger.

The three quickly ran back outside and into the pouring rain where Lucas was waiting.

"There's a leak in the ship's hold and we gotta patch it up fast," he said, already moving to the stern of the vessel where a hatch separated the decks of the yacht.

The young man opened the vertical door and began climbing down the small ladder it leads to. Once he was clear Jae jumped down into the pitch-black space, being followed closely by Rose than Max. Once in the hold, all four already knew what to do, the two electric Pokemon started channeling energy into their palms, filling the room with a dim purple glow.

Max watched as Lucas pulled a rectangular sheet of metal off a shelf and used it to cover where the water was pouring in from. Jae then ran to his side, the Scorbunny using his flamethrower to slowly weld the edges of the plate to the wall. The brilliant light from the fire filled the room far greater than either of the two's electrical sparkle ever could, marking its usefulness over.

While the work was being done, the Minun walked around the room, looking up at the shelves full of various items such as food, drinks, fuel, and one even had a few board games they would occasionally play.

A soft Thunk against the outside of the ship caught Max's attention. Unsure if anyone else heard it, he moved closer, nearly placing his face against the wall. An instant after this he felt a shard of metal be fired at him, slicing his face, followed by a jet of water push hard against him and knocking him down onto the ground where saltwater started burning the new wound on his face. He kept himself from screaming at the pain but staggered to get back up, causing him to fall against the metal leg of a shelf. He was about to slip and return face-first into the flood when an arm blocked his fall; he turned to see that it was, of course, Rose's.

Max found himself looking her straight in the eyes when she started speaking, "What happened? Why are you bleeding?"

He tried to find some words to say but failed entirely, instead she just took a look at the cut on his head and then the hole in the bulkhead then spoke, "I think I get what happened, just stay here and I'll be right." She then let him lower himself against the wall and enter a sitting position.

Max looked around over to the others, they were still working on fixing the initial leak and haven't even noticed.

The Plusle then began climbing up the steel cabinets disappearing from his sight.

_"Why does this always happen to me," _Max thought, _"no matter what I do I always seem to get hurt and it's always her to be the one to save me. I just wish I could look out for myself for once." _

By this time Rose had returned, holding a first aid kit with both her paws. She splashed it onto the ground and began digging through it. After a few moments, the red pokemon pulled a pocket-sized spray-bottle from the medical kit filled with a shimmering purple liquid.

"O-k just let me…" she said, tearing a small plastic label off the bottle, "this will probably burn a bit." The plusle then sprayed the fluid onto his cut, causing an immense burning pain that Max had to force himself not to start tearing up as a result. After a few seconds, the burn faded and his face felt as good as new.

The light in the room vanished as the last inch of the plate was secured. Max got back up onto his feet and joined with Rose to clear the darkness with their light.

Lucus looked over to them and saw the pair standing next to the newly formed leak in the wall and said, "Woah, I didn't see that second hole, good job guys."

The human then walked up to them and ruffled the fur on the top of their heads. Although Max found this somewhat embarrassing, he didn't mind it all too much. Humans tended to be pretty touchy-feely towards small Pokemon like him and, besides, it did feel pretty good.

A few more minutes of welding passed before their work was finished in the hold. Lucus helped the three small Pokemon out of the underbelly of the boat before climbing up the ladder himself.

The human then looked down at them and spoke with a satisfied tone in his voice, "Alright I think we're safe to sail through the rest of this stor- oh shit." Lucas' focus was stolen by something in the distance that Max could barely make out of the inky darkness, a field of large rocky pillars sprouting out of the sea, and they were sailing straight towards it.

"Quick everyone get inside," the captain shouted and they all obeyed, clumping up into the passageway of the boat while Lucas took the helm, trying desperately to sail the ship away. Despite his best efforts, the storm won out in keeping them on this course.

Max could feel the floor beneath him get more and more turbulent as he struggled to keep his balance. All the sudden he heard a loud CRASH come from the side of the ship followed by the vessel rotating sideways in a quick, decisive moment. This all culminated with the minute Minun getting launched towards the side wall of the craft and slamming his head, knocking him out cold.

**Author's note: So this is this is the first chapter to this story of many, pretty short but I just really wanted to try actually uploading a story to this site. Speaking of which, this is the first story I have ever publicly published so do keep that in mind while you read. Overall, I just hope whoever takes the time to read this ends up enjoying it and feel free to rate and review!**


	2. Beached

**Chapter 2: Beached**

Max struggled to open his eyes after gaining consciousness and even after achieving this he could still barely focus due to a splitting pain on the side of his head.

_"Wha- where am I," _the Minun thought, his vision still being blocked by the bright light flooding in all around him. He made an earnest attempt to stand up but only managed to nearly make it onto his feet before staggering forward and crashing into a metallic wall and being returned to the floor.

"Owwww…" he let out a soft squeak, feeling a pang of defeat but refused to give up and instead, tried to open his eyes again, this time to much more success. From what he could see he was in a completely demolished room, shards of metal and glass littered the floor, twisted pipes sprung from the walls, and all the furniture was completely obliterated. Max once again stood up while placing a paw against the surface behind him, granting him the balance he needed to stay on two paws. The doorway out of the room he had found himself in was utterly destroyed, the roof had collapsed in on it ensuring that even a creature as small as he was couldn't even make it through. Now that the feeling of fear and isolation was starting to set in his mind he gave out his loudest shout. "Rose! Lucas! Anyone there?" Much to his own fear he heard no response. Unsure of exactly what to do next, Max figured escaping this place was probably the only thing he could do. The Minun looked around and saw an escape route on the wall, a porthole which had been smashed in while still being large enough to crawl through.

The blue mouse walked below the hole and prepared his legs to jump up the five or so feet needed to make it. With a powerful leap, he sent himself into the air, grabbing hold of the edge and securing himself in the air. Despite the fact he could painfully feel smash shards of glass and metal digging into his paws, he was still able to push himself through, trying his best not to get cut further. Once outside he tumbled down the hard surface of the ship before landing in some shallow water and muddy sand. The Pokemon laid there in pain for a moment, staring at the bright blue sky and fluorescent white clouds hovering idly by above.

Max, fully aware that he couldn't just lay there forever, pushed himself up and took in his surroundings. He was next to the ship, that much was obvious, although the yacht seemed to have seen better days. It was caught on an outcropping of rocks, some even piercing into its hull. As for himself, he was on what appeared to be an island; an off-white flat beach stretched far in front of him until being cut off by a dense forest of brightly colored tropical plants. The Minun took a dozen or so steps forward, just enough so that the side of the yacht didn't block his vision and he no longer stood in the shallow water.

The Pokemon twisted his head to the side to and once again his fears were realized, he was completely alone on the beach. Slowly a creeping feeling of anxiety started growing into his head, he hated being alone, that much was true, but now that he was actually isolated, he began to feel sick. The fear grew stronger with every moment slowly manifesting itself from a slight worry in his head to strong nausea pushing him down against the ground. Just as he was about to give up on all hope he sensed a familiar scent that gifted him comfort. The aroma belonged to none other than Rose and created an almost tangible trail leading into the woods. With a renewed energy granted by his snout, Max got up and began trailing this sense which led into the tropical forest in front.

He pushed through some initial bushes that stood at the very edge of the tree line, navigating over roots and few fallen logs until he had completely disappeared into the tropical forest. As he went deeper and deeper the scent grew stronger and stronger until he was nearly on top of it, Max pushed himself through a final thorn riddled bush, scratching his skin as he popped out the other end and into a clearing. He quickly looked around, spotting, twenty-or-so feet away, a group of recognizable creatures sitting down around a fire. He was attempting to find an awkward way to join them when, before he even realized it, one of them had already noticed him and was bolting towards the Minun. He tried to step out of the way of the charging creature but was tackled to the ground before he could even do anything.

"So- sorry," said the Plusle that had brought him down, now pulling herself off of him and standing up.

"It's just that- when we woke up on this island, we couldn't find you anywhere. So we started to think you had fallen off the ship or even-" her voice had gained more and more momentum with every word and was now at a point where he could no longer make any sense of her speech.

Rose must have picked up on this because she just provided him a warm look before coming close and wrapping her arms around his body. Max didn't even get a chance to reciprocate the action as his arms were squeezed against his torso tightly. Although the Minun did enjoy the affection greatly he couldn't keep himself from getting embarrassed. This culminated with him giving off a goofy smile when she finally let go.

"I- I- Thanks," he clumsily forced out, his hypersensitivity only growing by the moment.

Luckily he was saved by Roses's attention being stolen by something else.

"Hey look! Max is over there," he heard Jae shout which was more than successful in attracting the attention of the whole group.

"Oh thank Arceus we found you," Lucas started speaking, "we were just about to give up on ever seeing you again."

By this time he was surrounded by the entire party minus Landen who was still off in the distance sitting around the fire.

"But now that we're all together, safe and sound, I think we should really start working on a plan for what we're going to do."

Everyone had started looking at Lucus fervently for the directions he always guides them with.

"On the bad side of things were stranded here seemingly indefinitely but this is essentially what we were aiming for all along, so there is more than enough food and supplies back on the ship to last us for quite a while."

_"What _**_you_**_ were hoping for, maybe," _Max thought begrudgingly to himself.

"So I think it would be in our best interest to try to get a lay of the land. I believe it would be best if you split up in pairs while I unloaded a few things off the ship and set up camp here for the night."

They all nodded in agreement and Landen had turned to listen in on the conversation.

"I'm guessing Rose and Max would like to make up one group so that leaves Jae and Landen to go together as another."

"Aww," Jae started to mock, "why do I have to be with Landen, he never talks or does anything."

Lucus shot the fire type a glare which seemed sufficient in quieting him down.

"I'm thinking it be best if…," the human paused for a second to mimic contemplation, "one pair circles the island to get an idea of how large it is while the other headed deeper into the woods and see what plants grow here and if we're alone or not."

Jae started hopping with excitement as he began to speak, "I call going to the shore! It'll be easy cause I won't need to worry about getting scratched by all the thorny plants and stuff, unlike you guys."

Rose turned to face Max, " I guess that leaves us to go into the woods, it should be fun."

The Minun nodded to Rose, albeit he really wasn't anywhere near excited about it as the rest of them.

"Then that settles it, you all should head out now as to cover as much ground as possible, just try to be back before night sets."

With that, they all departed with Max and Rose heading much deeper into the dense shrubbery of the jungle. It didn't take the pair long until they stumbled across a stream cutting through the forest and rumbling hard as it carried water forward.

"Thank Arceus," Rose started in a sportive tone, "I had been dying for something to drink since we got off the ship." The Plusle then cupped her paws together before dunking them into the stream and slurping the water from her hands.

Max, being in much the same way as Rose, decided to do the same and slowly walked up to the stream, positioning himself a few steps to the side of the Plusle. He then dipped his dark blue paw into the water, feeling the cold liquid rush itself against his appendage. Mimicking the red pokemon next to him he started to drink from the stream, first with his hand but then he found himself naturally going onto all fours and using his tongue to ingest the fluid.

The Minun enjoyed the serene environment greatly, the still air, the steady push of the stream and the relaxing noise it produced all went to creating a sense of peace in his mind that he hadn't felt for a long time.

_"I like this,"_ Max began to think to himself while he went to take another drink from the river, _"why can't things just be more like this, simple and calm… it's just nice."_

As the small blue mouse approached the stream, he saw something ripple in the corner of his eye but ignored it and instead lowered himself as close as possible to drink from the water source. In almost the same instance that he did this, a green fish-like Pokemon shot straight up from under him. This caused him to fall back with a stagger, but his problems didn't end there. The Basculin had gripped onto his leg and was trying to pull the Minun into the stream. Max kicked at the predator in a panicked fashion but it didn't even seem to phase the fish. He was rapidly losing ground as the aquatic creature was winning out in the fight, his entire body had almost been fully plunged into the water.

Just as Max lost the last little bit of traction with the ground, he felt a surge of electricity shoot through him, coursing out of his body and into his attacker. The Basculin let out a low growl as it released his leg, allowing him to clamber back onto solid ground.

"You know you could've done that yourself," Rose joked as she stretched out her paw to help him up. She then gave out a light smirk before teasing, "Oh, Max, what am I going to do with you."

After brushing off the mud that had accumulated on his fur, the pair were, understandably, not feeling thirsty anymore so they continued onward deeper into the jungle.

"D- Do you think there's any more predators in these jungles…" Max asked shyly as the two navigated through a natural passage in the forest.

"Mmmm probably," Rose replied, and much to the Minun's chagrin his fears were worsened. "Relax, predatory Pokemon only ever hunt alone, and last I counted there were two of us," she said trying to calm him down.

"But what if their a ground type or a dragon type or a-"

"What if," the Plusle cut him off, "we don't come across any other Pokemon, everything goes fine, and we return to Lucus safe and sound."

Max attempted to figure out some comeback to this but was stopped when he tripped over a rock, face planting into the ground and receiving a giggle from Rose. While on the floor he looked over at the stone that his paw had gotten caught on and saw that it didn't look very much like any piece of earth he had seen before. He stood up and picked it up, observing the object that seemed to fit perfectly into his paw. The item's exterior was in the shape of a hexagon, perfectly cut and extremely smooth to the touch. There was a seam that ran down its horizontal center that connected to a hinge. With a little force, he was able to flip it open and see its inside. On the lower half of the object was a clear glass panel over a set of four points with an arrow loosely dangling at the bottom. The top half had a single inscription that had far worn away from anything legible.

"What you got there," Rose piped up while attempting to look over his shoulder.

"I… I think it's like a compass or a clock or some other object that humans like to use."

The Plusle looked at the small open device in his hands before replying, "it can't be, it's way too small for anyone but a Pokemon to use, and anyways it looks like its broken, the pointer on it just falls with gravity." Rose then proceeded to prove her point, grabbing it straight out of his paws and rotating it around in her own.

"I- I guess that's true but I'll still hold onto it, Lucas might know what it's for."

"Alrighty," she said as she handed it back to him, "we should continue pushing forward, it'll be dusk anytime now."

With that, the pair once again continued on, the sun starting to reach its final leg before disappearing behind the horizon.

They both had covered a considerable amount of distance and the thought of heading back was beginning to set in both of their minds. Albeit, this was before they encountered a rather odd location.

"Rose, I really think we should go back, I think we would be lucky you make it back before night if we wait any longer."

Rose replied to this quickly and calmly, "see that's the problem, you think too much. If it becomes night while we're still out here, then that's a problem for us to deal with."

"I rea-"

"Hold that thought, I think I see something," Rose said over him while getting on all fours and bolting ahead of him.

Max duplicated this gesture, knowing that he definitely didn't want to be alone when night set it and began to chase.

This only went on for a little bit as Max caught Rose standing on two paws in a massive clearing and looking awestruck at what stood in front of her.

"Max are you seeing this," she spoke without moving her head.

A massive stone temple sat in front of them, towering over them with its size peaking into the clouds. The rocks used to construct it were almost green in hue, vines, and moss covering a large portion of the structure as well as a stone staircase that leads to its top.

"Come on, let's see what's inside," Rose said, once again running forward before Max could even get a word in.

The pair rejoined at the base of the staircase, an intimidating challenge to climb up, but not one that seemed to even slightly put off the plusle who began navigating it one step at a time. Max followed suit, expanding a large chunk of his energy with every step as the spacing between them was nearly as high as his own body length.

Eventually, the duo reached a small ridge that existed as one of the floors of the temple, Max was heavily out of breath and panting as he stood behind Rose who seemed to be just as full of energy as when they started climbing.

"Look over there, it's a way inside," Rose shouted happily as she turned and headed along the rim to a large arch opening to a dark chamber.

Max wasn't too far behind as she entered, the room was almost pitch black, although the blue mouse could make out enough to see that the room was grandeur in scale, some form of ancient writing lined the walls and a massive open-pit stood in the middle of the space.

"Woah," Rose exclaimed as she looked at one of the walls, observing the strange carvings that completely covered every single vertical surface in the temple. "This doesn't look like English or whatever it is humans use. Either way, I don't have the slightest idea what it could mean."

The Minun walked up behind her and started gazing at the wall as well, finally having regained his breath after his chase up the staircase. Strange amalgamations of symbols stood next to crude depictions of Pokemon, some which he could recognize, and others that stood completely foreign to the mouse, a few of them completely dwarfing the size of others. This slightly unsettled Max who quickly jumped as he heard a metallic CLANG come from deep below him.

"Quick Max, look over there," the Plusle to his side shouted at him while pointing to the giant hole in the center of the room.

From the hole rose a couple of creatures, each with a black frame and a singular white eye in the center of its body. The being in its entirety looked eerily similar to the letters that were on the wall he had looked at only moments ago. The entities quickly hovered towards the pair, surrounding them and circling them slowly, each giving off an ominous, low, almost mechanical-sounding noise.

"This, uh, doesn't look too good," Rose let out as she and Max walked slowly backward, pressing their bodies firm against the stone wall behind them. "Well I guess there's only one thing we can do," she said in a whisper while providing him a quick wink. The Minun had picked up on the clue, already preparing himself for what she had planned. In one smooth movement, the Plusle shot her body to the side, and immediately after that Max followed suit, allowing there two mathematically symboled tails to connect and for energy to easily pass between the two. He could feel the energy being bounced back and force between their bodies, growing in strength each time until it was finally ready to be unleashed, the two disconnected there appendage and letting out a fierce electrical attack.

This seemed to work as the few black beings that had surrounded them dropped to the floor with a grating metallic noise. But they both knew they were far from safety as they heard more coming from deep inside the ruin, raising to their current position. In almost an instant they were surrounded again, this time by dozens of the beings who slowly started to glow blue.

"I think there preparing an attack," Rose shouted to Max as she pushed them both down to the ground, his vision becoming completely enveloped by a blinding light. Slowly the Minun could feel his body get overtaken by a slight burning sensation that slowly grew into a fierce heat before he blacked out into oblivion.

**Author's Note: Well I guess this is going to be a weekly thing, which shouldn't be too much trouble for me to keep up with. As for this chapter it ended at what I think is a nice cliff hanger: will Max and Rose survive, how have Jae and Landon been faring during their expedition, and what secrets could this seemingly deserted island be hiding. Make sure to come back next chapter to find out!**


	3. One foot in the Grave

**Chapter 3: One Foot in the Grave**

_**"**__At least you could cheer up a bit, we're safe now and we can leave it in our pasts."_

_"But-"_

_"But nothing, it wasn't your fault, you had nothing to do with it."_

_"I just think that-"_

_"Listen to me, you did everything you could. I know how hard it is to live with what happened that day but you have to look forward to the future."_

_"..."_

"Max! Max wake up!"

The blue Pokemon was roused violently by a voice shouting towards him and a hand violently shaking him. He opened his eyes, forcing his eyelids apart despite what the light around him protested.

"Come on! Please get up," the voice shouted again, now urging him propping himself up onto four paws, he now found himself looking up at Rose who was staring back down at him.

_"Did you have to be so rough," _the Minun thought to himself as he sat down to make sense of the groggy world around him.

"What... What's going on," he pushed out dazedly to the Plusle standing in front of him.

"I'm not too sure and that's the problem. one moment I was on the boat with you and now we're both here-" she broke from her sentence and took a moment to look around rapidly. "You wouldn't happen to have any clue on what's going on?"

He was about to automatically shake his head when the memory of the shipwreck and the temple surfaced in his head. He was about to say something when a better idea popped in his head. "Can you wait here for a moment… I- I need to go check on something."

"Sure," she quickly replied, "just promise you won't disappear on me."

He nodded at the rhetorical question and ran off. Max was certain this place had looked familiar and, sure enough, he arrived at his goal. A massive clearing, just like the one he had found the temple in, was right where it should've been. Only thing was, the stone building itself was completely absent in the space, having vanished into thin air.

_"Was that just a dream…"_ Max began questioning his own memory, _"it has to of been, there's no other explanation for it."_

The Minun began walking back to Rose, now as confused as ever. His short journey, however, was interrupted as he spotted an object glimmering brightly from the sun. Max stepped over to it and picked it up. He became both relieved and perplexed by what he had grabbed. _"This- This is the broken compass-thingy from the dream- er- well I guess it wasn't a dream."_ The item had been opened on its hinge and the sun had been reflected off of its clear, crystal-like surface.

"Hey Max, what's been keeping yah," Rose said, pulling him from his thoughts. "Look something weird is going on here. Both of our scents are all over this place."

"That's… odd," he spoke while attempting to make himself sound as confused as possible. _"I really don't think I should bring the temple up to her, I'd probably just sound insane anyways." _Max then began formulating a follow-up statement, "do you think- er... I mean, we should probably follow our trail back, like-"

"I was thinking the same thing," Rose said, cutting him off, "It's not like we have anywhere else to be."

With that, the two set off back the way they came; Max still holding on tightly to the compass in his paw. Along the way he noticed that the entire path their own scent produced seemed entirely off, the smell didn't seem to taper off at all as they went along it. Eventually, the duo made back to the river where Rose recommended him a drink and Max, foreseeing a certain outcome, politely denied.

Shortly from the river was the initial clearing which they had departed from prior. In the area, the pair saw various boxes littering the ground along with Lucus who had just spotted them and started approaching their position.

"Hey you guys, what are you doing back so soon," the human questioned while setting a folded up tent onto the ground.

"Wait, what do you mean by 'back'," rose asked while tilting her head slightly, "I'm not following what you mean."

An important detail suddenly crashed into Max's mind. The Pokemon turned his face up to the sky, seeing that the sun was only slightly past the position it had been the last time he was here. _"It was just dusk and now its bright in the afternoon and Lucus is saying how we just returned…"_

The Plusle began talking again, "Lucus where _is_ this and how did we end up here?"

Lucas replied in an equally confused tone, "We shipwrecked don't you remember… are you feeling alright? Just find a seat and I'll go get you some water."

"No don't," she quickly uttered just as the being was about to turn around, "I feel fine, just a little confused. I guess the best way I could describe it feels like time is being reversed in my mind."

"_Time…"_ Max began processing in his thoughts, _"could we have traveled back through time… No that's insane, I guess I'm just as confused as she is."_

"Well then, as long as you say you're alright, the day is still young and I could always use both of your help in setting up camp."

The two electric Pokemon gave a synchronized nod and began following behind the human when something caught the three's attention.

Jae appeared out of the distant foliage, nearly running fast enough to set the grass beneath him on fire with each step. The Scorbunny came to a grinding halt just a few feet from the group and started talking at an incredible rate. "Listensomethingreaalybadhappenedandireallyreal-"

Lucus interrupted his nonsensical speech, "Whoa, calm down a tad, no one can understand you when you're speaking that fast."

The fire type took a few moments to catch his breath and stop hyperventilating before attempting to communicate again. "So," he took an elongated gulp before continuing, "Landon and I were going along the beach like you told us too."

"Speaking of Landon, where is he," Lucas asked, although he already had a slight premonition as to where this was going.

"We had gone quite a bit and then these Pokemon appeared and attacked us out of nowhere. I tried to ask them for a reason why but they just kept pelting us with attacks. I managed to get away in the chaos but afterwards, I went back there and couldn't find Landon anywhere. I think they might have captured him."

"Well then we have to go after him," Lucus replied in an oddly calm tone. "Come on all, Jae you lead the way back to where you two were attacked and we can work from there."

The Scorbunny gave a nod and the entire party began heading out towards the shore in the hopes of saving their lost friend.

…

Landon woke up in a state of limitless uncomfortability. His entire body ached from the fight he was vastly outnumbered in and, much worse, he had been unconscious on the hard, dirty soil beneath him. The Minccino took stock of his environment after dragging himself off the floor. He was in a crudely constructed wooden cage, obviously made to hold a creature much larger than himself, in fact, he could probably slip right in between the bars if he wanted too. However, the main force stopping him from doing such was a Cubone standing guard right in front of the cell. Along with that, in the distance, he could see at least a dozen other Pokemon moving between what looked like huts made quickly with whatever was available.

_"Just great," _the gray Pokemon thought to himself, _"even if I could beat that Pokemon, he'd go and alert his group, and in my current state I couldn't avoid all of them. Guess I'll just have to go about this another way."_ Finishing that though, Landon shouted towards the guard who had his back turned to him.

"Hey!"

He got no response.

"Hey, I know you can hear me."

He was still ignored and it was starting to get on his nerves.

"Hey, you deaf orphaned fuckwad, over here."

The Cubone didn't even give him the slightest bit of attention.

Now being pushed past his limit, the Minccino picked up a rock off the ground and hurled it at the guard, directly hitting him in the back of its skull helmet with a loud "THUNK."

This seemed to finally attract the Pokemon as after it recovered from the impact, it walked over to him in an angry fashion.

"Alright, what the fuck do you want," the Cubone spoke in an agitated, masculine tone.

"I want to know why you decided to knock me unconscious and lock me up in here," Landen said in as much of an enraged tone as he could muster.

"Well that's not something you're gonna find out. So sit there nice and pretty and stop being such a pain in the ass."

The Minccino, thoroughly pissed, slipped his body in-between the bars of the cage and walked expressionlessly up to ground type while giving him a death stare. The Cubone took a few steps back with a slight shock in his eyes. Landen took this opportunity to deck the Pokemon in the stomach, causing it to fall to the ground, clutching his abdomen.

Landen then swiftly turned around and calmly entered back into his "cage," knowing that if he wanted to strike back against him, the Cubone would be too wide to reach him.

"I swear to fucking Arceus," the guard said as he raised himself from the dirt, "you do that again and I'll rip your hairball of a face off."

"Except you _won't _do that," the Minccino cockily replied, "if you were going to kill me, you would have already done it, why else would I be in a cage."

The other Pokemon just let out a low, "Humph."

"So I'll ask you again, and if you don't answer me this time, I'll make sure to turn every second you're watching over me into a living hell. Why am I in this shitty excuse for a cage."

"Fine," he said in a low grumble, "you're in there because we need someone to act as a sacrifice."

_"A sacrifice? Now this is getting good."_

The Minccino replied in a cocky tone once again, "so what are you going to do me, stab me through the heart, maybe even hang me from a stick and leave to starve so that you can appease whatever false idol you worship. You really got my mind reeling now."

"For somebody about to die," the Cubone spoke, "you sure do talk a lot."

_"We'll see about that."_ Landon quickly formulated a plan in his mind for escape now that he had the Cubone's attention. "Say, I'm guessing this whole sacrifice thing is a 'more the merrier' kinda ideal."

He could see the other Pokemon raise an eyebrow behind his mask before inquiring, "where exactly are you going with this?"

"But is it?"

"Yeah, sure, I don't see why it wouldn't."

"Well, you happen to have a weak, defenseless Pokemon with you who just happens to know where a bunch of other weak, defenseless Pokemon are and he wouldn't mind for a second to sell them out to save his fur."

"Yeah right, what reason would have to trust you?"

"You see, I'll take you straight to them, if they're not there then you can have your little sacrifice right then and there, at the very least you still have _a _Pokemon caught."

"I'd have to be slower than a Slowpoke to fall for something like that, you'd run the second I turned my back on you."

"So then bring as large as a group as you want with you, I wouldn't even get any chance to deceive you if they have even half a brain. Plus look at me," he turned around and showed the Cubone a cut that stretched across the length of his back, something he had gained when they attacked him. "Look, with a mark like that there's no way I'd be able to run at all for at least a few days."

"You have an answer for everything don't you," the Cubone replied sarcastically while appearing to be thinking his words over in his head. "I really don't have any reason to believe a word you said, except for the fact that you seem to be the kind to sell someone out to save your own hide."

A smirk came to the Minccino's face, he was starting to bite. "Keep in mind that the longer I'm in here, the longer you're stuck with me."

"You just wait there and I'll be back, not like you have much of a choice, even if that cage cant hold you; If you were to try and escape, someone would catch you, and I highly doubt they'd hold any resentment to breaking your legs right then and there."

_"Why would I need to leave when I already have you right where I want you."_

The Cubone then left Landon for a few moments, and seeing no reason to do otherwise, stayed put.

When the brown Pokemon returned, he was quick to speak first, "Wow, I'm genuinely surprised you didn't try to escape, can't be that bright to let your only shot at freedom pass you by."

"Trust me, your shitty excuse for a Pokemon isn't what's keeping me here."

"Whatever you say, anyways, I found a group to come with me and to make sure you don't have the slightest chance in hell to try something."

Landon just rolled his eyes, they could bring one Pokemon or a million, it wouldn't affect his plans.

"Anyways, you might as well give me your name since you might just not be a dead Pokemon walking. Mine is Grave by the way."

The Minccino couldn't help but laugh a little in his mind before taunting, "oooh Grave, such a big tough name for such a little bitchy Pokemon."

"You think you could try to be polite for at least five minutes," Grave mocked, "or is that too much to ask of you."

"Hey, you're not the one who was almost murdered before being kidnapped to be used as a living sacrifice." An awkward silence hung in the air before he decided to break it, "but I guess you can me Landon."

With this exchange, the events that followed were pretty simple in nature. Landon was brought to the group of Pokemon, which, for the most type were all ground or rock types. After this the Minccino was forced to lead them throughout the jungle, something he did without hesitation, making sure to stick to a certain path only he knew about. During the entire trek he was antagonized by the other Pokemon who even went as far as to prohibit him from even drinking or eating, something that only grew the deep resentment he had towards them more and more. Eventually night did fall on them, and the other seemed to come to a consensus that resting now would be an appropriate course of action. Landon made sure to make his way away from the group when he went to rest, just close enough as to not arouse suspicion, but far enough to ensure they couldn't do anything to him easily. It was while he was lying on his side that Grave approached him.

"Go away you fucking pervert and stop watching me sleep" he scolded while throwing a rock at the Cubone who had started staring at him. The rock completely missed the ground type, which was to a slight degree intentional.

"Relax… Jeez," Grave said, "I'm not here to do anything like… that to you while you're sleeping." He then paused for a bit before continuing, "I'm here to make sure you don't try to make a break for it while we're all sleeping. Oh, and to also pay back the favor from earlier." The Cubone then ran up to him and kicked him in the abdomen with a powerful amount of force.

Landon rolled around a bit in pain before it subsided, giving off a visible smirk before speaking, "I guess you're stronger than I thought, but my expectations weren't that high to begin with."

"You really can't help yourself from insulting people can you. Look, the real reason I'm here is because I have some questions I want answered."

The Minnocino turned his head away from him and prepared to ignore everything that was about to be said to him.

"I hope you know your not fooling me in the slightest."

This managed to catch Landon's attention

"Wherever you are taking us, it definitely isn't too some magical place full of Pokemon just willing to be taken away. I've been all throughout these jungles hundreds of times and know there isn't a Minnocino colony for miles and miles, and I highly doubt there's anyone else waiting for your return right now."

"You know you're not the spitting image of politeness yourself."

"I'll be honest, you probably do have all the other's fooled, but then again you could tell them that the sky will turn red tomorrow and they'd believe it with just a tiny bit of apprehension. So I'll ask again, where are you taking us?"

He bubbled the question around in his head for a moment before replying, "I think the better question is, if you don't believe me, then why did you tell all these members of your tribe to follow me?"

"How about you answer my question first and I'll see about getting back to yours."

"Don't make me laugh, seeing as you need my answer and I don't need yours, I think I'll pass on that offer."

"Aww, you think you have a choice," the Cubone said right before striking him in the side with his bone club.

Landon was once again reduced to rolling in pain on the ground before he could concentrate, "Fine, I'll tell you this much, your right in saying It's not where you think."

Grave thought for a second before replying, "I guess in a way, that's all i really wanted to know, and too your question, I'll tell you this much, maybe I wanted to see just what you had planned." He began turning around and walking forward before stopping, "and this one's for being an asshole."

The Pokemon then once again swung his club at the normal type's side with incredible force, but stopped just short of connecting. "Although sadly, I do still need you to at least be able to walk." Grave finally decided to leave, and not a moment too soon, with Landon falling asleep not too far after.

The next day went much like the end of the first, with Landon leading them throughout the jungle and, about midway through the day, he had finally arrived and his plan was falling almost perfectly into place.

"_Now I just wait, I could sense the scent of whatever predator this was from all the way back at the tribe, and given how these other Pokemon barley have a sense of smell, if any at all. They won't see it coming, and in the havoc that follows I'll break away from the group, hopefully they'll be torn to shreds, and then i'll be home free." _The only problem was one loose end that the Minccino thought would occur, Grave was completely absent for the group, proving that he truly did see through his plan, or at least just far enough through to save his own skin.

Once he noticed the other Pokemon weren't watching him, he grabbed a sharp stone off the ground and sliced his arm just deep enough to draw a droplet or two of blood, which he knew would attract the predator Pokemon almost immediately. His self-made prophecy was coming true as he could hear them in the distance approaching, and as the other Pokemon also didn't have hearing like he did, they stayed completely ignorant to it.

All in one instance, A Houndoom shot out from the treeline, pinning a Marowak down onto the ground. Another shot a wall of fire at all the surrounding trees, creating a thick blanket of smog that made seeing and breathing difficult.

Landon was hard pressed on whether or not he wanted to stay to watch the carnage unfold, a small part of him saw a moraless victory in doing such, another part wanted to get as far away as possible. Eventually reason did win out and he started dashing as hard as he could throughout the woods, which was proving somewhat difficult due to the injury on his back and the beating that Grave had provided him.

After running a distance and being sure he was safe, the Minccino dropped to the ground, panting from the intense fleet. He was not out of the jungle yet as a Houndoom bolted right out of the woods from his side and was now face first against the giant predator.

"_I must not have heard it due to my heavy breathing," _he thought, being fully aware that, even if he did prove strong enough to beat the creature, in his current state he was far to exhausted.

The predator gave off a vicious growl, Landon fully aware that any moment now it would pounce at him and rip his face off, he was entirely out of options.

The Houndoom did just that, flying towards him at incredible speed, and by some miraculous luck, he managed to dodge the initial charge and have the dog slide on by right past him.

But now he was against the ground, too exhausted to even pull himself off the ground, and the Houndoom had turned itself around and was about to finish him off once and for all.

That was when an attack came out from the woods, right in front of him and hitting his adversary right in the skull. The dog gave out a quick yelp followed with a growl before disappearing into the woods.

A familiar, but somewhat unwelcomed face appeared from the foliage to greet the Minnocino.

"Really didn't think you were planning on sending all those Pokemon to literally die, but I guess to each their own."

Landon just stared silent at the Cubone which had saved his life.

"...And don't think of this as a show of mercy either, I just want you alive because I still have quite a few things to know about you."

Once again Landon stayed silent.

"That means…" Grave reached extended his bone club out for him to pick himself up with, "getting out of here before anymore of those Houndoom show up."

…

Meanwhile, Max, Rose, and the others had scoured both the shore and the beach for any signs of their missing crew mate. On the first day they failed to find even the slightest sign of the Pokemon and had to go to sleep with their failure in mind. The next day did prove much more successful as they did find a scent trail that belonged to Landon, however this did seem to come to a dead end, and with no other alternatives, they were starting to lose hope. This was until they saw massive plumes of fire rising into the sky from the distance, something they were all aware could only have been caused by a Pokemon and, with nothing else to give them direction, they started making their way towards it.

**Author's Note: It appears that this place may have a few secrets to it… It also seems that Landon may be a completely different person than the crew had come to know. What is with this? Well, you'll have to keep reading to find out! Also, seeing that you've made it this far into the story, you must have **_**some**_ **interest in it, right? So why not consider following/favoriting it or even go as far as to even leave a review! Just a few words are more than enough, I'm not a particularly picky person.**


	4. Front foot forwards

**Chapter 4: Front foot forwards**

"Come on, can't we stop and take a rest, my paws are starting to hurt from walking all day," Rose complained out loud.

Max couldn't agree more, although he did understand the urgency of the situation, it had been quite a while since they had even eaten anything.

The Minun was now wearing the strange compass around his neck, as after he had shown it to Lucas the previous night he noticed a hole running through the back of it and decided to run a piece of string through it, thinking that it made himself look just a tiny bit cooler.

"Trust me I'm just as tired as you but for all, we know he's either still captured by those other Pokemon, or has at least something to do with the forest fire in the distance after all his trail did cut off in the exact direction of the smoke plums. As long as we have reason to believe he's in danger, we have to keep pushing forward."

"I guess you're right..." Rose let out softly and the group continued on the way with few further complaints for the time being.

"But…" the human continued on, "it is getting late, it might be in our best interest to find a place to rest soon."

None of them commented on this and instead kept walking silently further into the jungle.

…

Landon, despite the injuries that covered his body and the fact he was very much exhausted, couldn't bring himself to fall asleep. Perhaps it was due to his near-death experience, but, more likely, it was the result of his close proximity to Grave.

The Cubone was sitting at the opposite end of a fire, one that he had lit once they were certain they were outside of the Houndoom's territory.

"You know, just because you saved me doesn't make us pals," the Minccino released while trying to combat his fatigue

The other Pokemon let out a slight chuckle before commenting, "Is that so? and here I was thinking you'd be all over me."

"Trust me, first thing in the morning I'll be gone, as far away from you as I can get. You'll be lucky I don't slit your throat in your sleep."

Grave kept his slight smirk as he listened, "you know you can drop the tough Pokemon act now, I have no interest in hurting you, and especially no interest in ever returning to that tribe."

A moment of silence hung in the air as the fire crackled happily. The other Pokemon's words did gain his attention though.

"Plus," an almost razor-sharp smirk grew across his face, "I'm sure you'll find yourself helping me soon enough."

"I'd rather rot in hell then be near you for a second longer than I have too."

"Exactly," he remarked, "and given your current state, if you were to try and go out on your own, you'd probably be hunted down and killed by a predator soon enough."

_"Regrettably, he isn't wrong, I'm covered in cuts and bruises, I can barely even walk and it's not like there's anyone else who can help me." _The Minccino gave in and said in an annoyed tone, "fine, what is it that you want from me anyways."

The Cubone's tone changed into a prideful smile, "there we go, now we're getting somewhere, was complying for once really that hard?"

Landon just let out some air through his nose aggressively.

"First, I would like to know more about you, where you're from and so one."

"Bold of you to assume I'd reply to your question with the truth, but I'll give you _an _answer if you agree to receive a few questions from my end."

"fair enough, but in this scenario, a lie may be just as valuable as the truth."

Landon, not seeing any real reason to actually lie, replied with, "I was born on the outskirts of Motostoke in Galar, I ran into a few problems there and decided to escape them by hopping on the first ship leaving the region. We spent a few months at sea, hopping from small island to island until we got lost in the open ocean for a while and ended up beaching on wherever here is."

"Galar," Grave said while raising one eyebrow, "never heard of it, much less a place called Motostoke. And this 'we' you mentioned, I'm guessing the crew mates with you on the boat, do you think they would be searching for you right now?"

"Probably," the Minccino let out, not really putting any care into his response, "But you don't have to worry about that, I don't have any real allegiance with them."

"That's a bit cold don't you think?"

"Yeah, but as far as I'm concerned they've fulfilled their use to me, I needed to escape from where I was, and now I'm here, everything worked out as it should."

"And here I thought Cubones were supposed to be the lonely Pokemon. Anyways I think all I got all I needed from you so it's your turn to ask the questions."

Landon was caught a bit off guard by the other Pokemon's willing to dispose of information, but still made use of the opportunity anyways. "Well, tell me why was it that you were so eager to watch your friends get murdered and abandon them when you knew what was coming?"

"Well, I wouldn't say I wanted to see them dead, but eager to escape, definitely. Trust me, I've been trying to figure out a way to abandon that tribe for at least a month but they're pretty adamant about once you join, you serve for life. So I needed an opportunity to disappear so I wouldn't be hunted down and have my head pit on a stake, and that's when you came in."

"So what _were_ you doing there if you didn't _want_ to be there," he said in a somewhat belittling tone, already losing interest in the Pokemon's life story.

"Well, it began with me simply looking for a place to live, you know provide shelter and food and all that. On my quest for this, I quickly learned that the Pokemon here aren't like the ones from the mainland. Sure you have the same predators needing to kill to survive, but the ones that group together and form colonies seem to be a bit more, to put it nicely... tribalistic. I personally think it has something to do with the lack of any human civilizations to mimic."

"You talk like your no-"

"Your right, I'm not from here, just like you, I came from the mainland, Sinnoh to be exact."

The Cubone then turned around, taking off his skull helmet and pulling an item out before putting it back on.

"Here," Grave said while tossing a small metal object towards the Minccino, "take a look at that."

The item was a thick pin with the top half being a rounded semi-circle and the other a trapezoid. In the middle was a pentagon surrounding and surrounded by a material that was topaz in cover. The design in its entirety as outlined by a silvery material. He flipped the pin around to see, engraved on the back, 'Malcolm – 2016 – Coal Badge.'

The Cubone quickly grabbed the item back from his paws and stores it in his helmet. The Pokemon was obviously waiting to see how the Minccino responds.

"So I'm guessing you have a trainer."

"Had. I had a trainer," Grave said, taking on a deeper, more serious tone.

"So what does this have to do with anything," Landon said, purposefully trying to sound as unemphatic as possible.

"Well, just like most of the young and ambitious Pokemon in Sinnoh, I dreamed of becoming stronger, to become the best me I could be, and I knew the only way to do so was to befriend a human. Eventually, I run into him, Malcolm, playing around in a cave. We were both young, I had only been alive for a year or so, and he was still just a child. The kid had managed to piss off a Zubat nest and was just about to take a few too many wing attacks to the face. Naturally, I couldn't just watch an innocent kid get mauled to death so I jumped in to defend him, I ended up taking the brunt of the damage and fainting, but being a Pokemon its a lot better than I was the punching bag and not the human. I ended up fainting from the damage and waking up in a Pokecenter emergency room and learned that the kid had, of course, rushed me there and had watched my recovery closely every day."

"Man, if I knew this was story time then I would have put a bit more effort into telling my story," the Minccino scoffed, having grown bored of the exposition.

"Fine, I'll hurry it up. As you can guess Malcolm and I grew very close to each other and, when he came of age, I choose without hesitation to be his starter as he fulfilled his dream of entering the Sinnoh league. After a few close calls, we finally managed to beat the gym leader and earn the coal badge. It was, just a few hours after this, that he started throwing up blood and collapsed onto the ground. At the hospital, we learned that Malcolm had stomach cancer and only had a few weeks to live. By some miracle, the cancer was eliminated and he ended up surviving, although the doctor knew that it would return, and the odds of a miracle like which he was granted were slim to none."

"Finally something interesting in your story, a little drama and death has never hurt anyone."

"Do you have any consideration for others, now that I think about it, probably not. Anyways, he was contacted by the Make-A-Wish foundation and he made his desire clear; before he passed he wanted to see as much of the world as possible, so they made that happen. A few years ago we traveled around the world on a boat the charity provided until he passed. Having nothing to return to, I took the ship and decided to see what was out there. You can probably "

"Well, that was a complete waste of time."

"You asked for my backstory, I gave it to you."

"I asked why you were standing guard of the cage I was captured in, not for an 80-page essay."

"It looks like you got both anyways."

"So what exactly does _any_ of that have to do with me, after all apparently I owe you some grand favor."

The ground type once again turned around and pulled something else out of his skull helmet.

"Geez, how much do you store in there, you wouldn't happen to keep any ibuprofen in there?"

Grave just gave him a dirty look before tossing an object into the Minccino's paws.

This item was completely different from the pin he was given previously. This thing was a large (for his size) light blue plate with intricate lines of a darker blue running across it, at a glance it resembled a blue circuit board. On top of its alien design, the panel also gave off an eerie deep blue glow with no explainable source for the light.

"It's a piece of metal, why should I care about it?"

"Well-"

"I swear to fucking Arceus," the Minccino growled slowly, "if you're about to waste another five minutes of my life with exposition, I'm going to rip out your fucking esophagus."

"There's no winning with you is there? Anyways, I found this thing just lying in the jungle on one of the first days I arrived here. It looks like it must belong to something important."

"Or it could just be a useless piece of junk."

"Or you could shut your mouth and let me finish. You see, it only started to glow a few days ago, and only when it's pointing facing a certain direction, meaning…"

"This is so fucking stupid…"

"That, naturally, it's trying to lead me to something," Grave said with a slight bit of excitement in his voice.

"Well that's just great for you but where do I fall into this?"

"Because I can't just go wandering throughout the jungle alone, sooner or later I'll come across a predator or a trap or something, so I'll need someone to watch my back."

Suddenly things were starting to make sense for Landon, facts fell perfectly into place in his mind like pieces of a puzzle. "So the real reason you decided to allow me to escape was due to the fact you wanted someone to go on a fantastical adventure with?"

"I guess you could say that."

"So why didn't you just take one of the hundred other numskulls I saw back in your tribe?"

"Like I said earlier, they aren't like me or you, they haven't grown up in the presence of humans and therefore act a lot more primitive than me or you from the mainland. I mean they still practice Pokemon sacrifice to appease a god that obviously doesn't exist, if I were to even bring something like this up to them, they probably shove me into a cage for going against their common understanding."

"Well that does seem like a pretty interesting problem you're stuck with, I hope you have a grand time trying to solve it with someone _who's not me."_

The Cubone didn't appear even the slightest bit put down by his adamant statement. "Come on, it's not like you have anything else to do."

"Yes I do, it's called making sure I'm not wasting my precious time following you around all day."

"I'm not gonna force you, but at least try thinking it over before you fall asleep tonight. Even if you don't, I'm sure you'll _feel_ different in the morning " Grave then promptly extinguished the fire that was burning fiercely between the two, shrouding them in almost complete darkness, only broken by the faint rays of light reflected off of the moon.

Landon fell asleep almost instantly afterward, having been thoroughly exhausted by the past few days.

…

They had been walking for almost two days straight, albeit the group had just reached the area of the jungle where the occasional tree or patch of grass had been charred black.

"I'm starting to get a bit worried," Max spoke softly as they walked, "We're- we're in some predators territory and it probably won't be happy with us just walking through..."

"Relax," Lucas said, "all three of you together can easily take on any enemy. Plus…" the human paused his speech as he pulled something out of a leather holster on his side.

The object was a large two-tone, blocky metal tool which he did not recognize, much less had ever seen Lucus with. The item, from what he could see was made up of many complex metal parts, all that seemed capable of moving in some way. Despite the object's foreignness to him, he couldn't help but get a menacing vibe emanating from it.

The human must have caught onto his uneasiness because, instead of finishing his sentence, he released a large rectangular container from the object and showed it to him.

"Relax, they're just rubber bullets, I'd like to harm any Pokemon as little as possible if it comes to it."

This didn't really help him understand what it was, but Max found it calming nonetheless.

The human then slid the container under the tool, which resulted in it giving off an audible 'click.'

Not much happened as they continued deeper into the embered forest, the only real distinction that they had even moved was the fact that the ground here was mostly scorched and the smell of ash was almost overwhelming.

"How you holding up," Rose asked Max, something caught him off as this was the first time anyone had spoken in a long while.

"Huh-" was all the Minun could elicit to the other Pokemon.

"You know-" the Plusle spoke shyly, something that wasn't very characteristic of her. "I just thought that this place might bring back some memories…"

Suddenly Max realized what she was talking about. "Yeah..." the Minun released in a somber tone while facing the floor, "yeah…"

"You know I probably shouldn't have brought it up, it's better being left in the past."

"No… you were always right when you told me not to run from how I feel, and right now I'm feeling the effects of the past."

"Max I-" she paused, obviously conflicted by what words she should use next. " I think we'll both be just fine," Rose spoke, her words being accompanied with an uplifting attitude and a quirky smile.

These words helped in settling his anxious mind, something Rose proved time and time again to do without hesitation.

This moment of uplifting calmness didn't last as the sound of rustling nearby broke the almost silent air.

"Quiet down you two, I think we have company," Lucus whispered to the pair.

The cause of the noise quickly revealed itself as the creature rose from the burnt grass on the forest floor. It was a Marowak who appeared to not take instant anger in their presence. The Pokemon was wounded badly, having several gashes cutting across its body and burn marks all over its appendages. The ground Pokemon simply gave out a deep breath before turning around and walking away.

Lucas turned down and looked at the trio of Pokemon with an expression urging them to do something.

Jae went first, who had remained surprisingly silent throughout the entire journey. The Scorbunny quickly started running up to the Marowak, shouting, "Hey! Hey you, as he rushed closer.

The other Pokemon seemed to not take too kindly to this as he spun around with a surprising amount of energy and launched his club towards Jae. The bone just barely missed the fire type and instead ricocheted harshly off the ground and flew straight back into the Pokemon's hands.

Rose quickly ran to Jae's side and scolded the other Pokemon, "you know that wasn't very nice, we just wanted to talk with you."

The Marowak had now taken up a defensive stature, staring straight at the two who had approached him.

"Max, Rose, use Play Nice, try to calm the Pokemon down," Lucus said in a fairly calm tone.

Max ran over to near where the Plusle was and both of them launched the attack in tandem. They both pulled off a pose and a ring of sparkles surrounded them individually before two large hearts shot out of them and sunk into the Marowak.

The move appeared to have worked like a charm, the ground type dropped from his aggressive stance and a look of peace filled his eyes.

"So now do you wanna talk," Rose asked while inflecting her voice in a cutesy manner.

The Marowak did reply, albeit in a deep and unemotional voice, "I have nothing to talk to you about."

"Aww, com'on don't you wanna chat for just a little," she repeated in the same tone in an attempt to charm the Marowak.

"What are you even doing in this part of the forest, I'd leave as soon as possible unless you want to end up like me."

"Were… looking for someone. You wouldn't have happened to have seen a Minccino named Landon would you?"

The ground types head shot straight up the second she mentioned this name. "If I had to take a guess, hopefully, he's somewhere dead in the jungle. Anyways if you're after him, your best bet would just be to get out of here before you end up like me."

"If you don't mind me asking, where di-" Rose was abruptly cut off by the other Pokemon.

"I think I've told you enough, I'm getting out of here now," he said while calmly turning around and walking off.

"Hey wait, before you go," Lucus said, prompting the other Pokemon to stop and face him.

It looked like the ground type was just about to say something when Lucus pulled an object out of his pocket and lightly tossed it to him. The Marowak caught it in his off-hand effortlessly and looked at it with confusion.

"What's this?"

"It's a potion," Rose informed, "you push the handle and a liquid will come out, you put that on your injuries and they will heal much quicker."

The Marowak looked down at the bottle, then back to the group before giving thanks beneath his breath and finally getting his wish of leaving the area.

After the Marowak escaped out of sight, Jae turned to Lucas and spoke, "so he could be dead…"

"Not quite," the human replied, "although that definitely a possibility, that Pokemon didn't seem very firm in his knowledge over Landon, and at the very least we know he's somewhere in this burnt forest."

Rose jumped up and spoke in an excited voice, seeing an opportunity to lift everyone's spirits, "yeah! We can't just give up over someone else's rumor! We should keep searching to the ends of the earth in order to make sure our friend is ok!"

"See I like that view on it much more," Lucus spoke, "but it is getting late and there's still the possibility of predators, so that will have to wait for tomorrow, right now we gotta find somewhere safe to stay the night."

**Author's Note: ** ...**and that makes four! As always I hope anyone who has read this far enjoyed it thoroughly. If you did enjoy it then you should make sure to keep an eye out for the next chapter, so many questions need to be answered. Will they find the Minccino? Does he even want to be found? What's up with Grave and his story? Most importantly, what'****s with**** backstory of Max and Rose that keep****s getting**** allud****ed**** to? Well, I'd tell you but your gonna need to keep reading in order to find out!**


	5. Deep Down Under

**Chapter 5: Deep Down Under**

The morning rays passed through the jungle foliage and hit Landon's eyelids, announcing his revival from the world of dreams. The Minccino tossed and turned around a bit on the ground before finally deciding to get up. The first thing the Pokemon noticed was how sore his muscles had become; granted he had been constantly running around and attacked for the past few days and this was the first night he had been able to get a decent amount of sleep. The second was the delicious scent of berries being slowly roasted over a fire, and of course, he also saw the last person he wished to see on this side of the planet.

"Morning sleepyhead," Grave said in a sarcastic, almost mocking tone.

Landon just rolled his eyes at the statement.

"Man, even after a good night's sleep you're still gonna be a pain in the ass? Who could've guessed."

"Shove a fucking sock in it," Landon replied with a sharp glare. Immediately afterward he grabbed a handful of uncooked Oran berries from a pile next to the fire and started to eat them.

"First, I was just about to cook those and secondly, who said you could have any."

The Minccino decided to just ignore him and keep eating.

"Well have you at least decided whether or not you'd like to be a useful pain in the ass and help me with my endeavor?"

Landon took a big gulp to swallow all the food in his mouth and then wiped his snout off with his paw. "Yeah," he spoke in a completely casual tone, "you're going to go that way," he then pointed in a random direction, "and I'm going to go this way," he spoke while pointing in the exact opposite direction, "and you're never going to come anywhere near me ever again."

The Cubone let out a half-hearted smile before speaking, "you're really not gonna make this easy for me, are you?"

"You're the one making this hard for yourself by not understanding what 'fuck off' means."

"Tell me, what did I ever do to make you hate me so much?"

The Minccino once again chased his pupils around his skull. "Let's see, there's the fact you attacked me, held me in a cage, and wasted so many hours of my life."

"I helped you escape from the cage didn't I, or are you gonna tell me you could've escaped from the entire tribe on your own? Also, no one said you _had_ to be here, you could've left whenever you wanted."

"Even if you did help me, that doesn't make me _want_ to be with you."

"Well you can at least answer me this, if you want to leave so badly then why haven't you already? I've said many times before you can just go, it's not like I have you tied up."

The Minccino, for once, didn't have any smart-ass response, although he didn't want to accept it, Grave did make a good point.

"Maybe it's because you enjoy being a thorn in my side, you even said you don't have anywhere else to be. I'm asking for your help, not for you to be my friend. You can continue being as big of an asshole as you'd like and still aid me in doing this. Once it's all over you can screw back off to whatever corner of hell you came from."

The Cubone was right and he hated the fact that the other Pokemon was right. Additionally, despite what he had protested, he couldn't abandon Grave and expect to make it that far. Afterall his muscles hurt like hell from just taking a few steps forward and it would be at least a couple of days until he could expect to be back in fighting shape. Still, he wasn't about to make it _that_ easy for this Pokemon anyway.

Without saying a word the Minccino, while slowly walking towards Grave and despite how badly his muscles ached in objection, picked up a rock off the ground. The Cubone looked at him in both confusion and like he wanted to say something. While being only a foot or so away he launched the rock into the side of the ground type torso, something that must have caught him off guard because the attack was enough to send him flying onto the ground. Landon then moved up to make himself essentially standing on top of the other Pokemon. "You might have a point but I want you to know that under no circumstances that this means, or will ever mean, that I'm warming up to you."

The Cubone just replied with a sarcastic, "Suuurrreee," that contained some slight sense of pride in the word.

The Minccino was just about to kick him in his rib cage when he decided against it, instead, he was just barely able to bring himself to swallowing his anger and instead reached out his paw to Grave.

The ground type accepted his implied proposal, grabbing onto the Minccino's paw with his clubless hand and shook it. The Cubone then hastily pulled the Minccino down onto the ground and used this leverage to bring himself to his feet. Grave then scoffed, " guess that doesn't make me your friend either."

Landon pushed himself painfully off the ground, ignoring Grave entirely and moving to the pile of uncooked oran berries to start eating them. The Minccino was just about to grab a handful of the blue fruit when something straight out of the bizarre began to happen. The ground beneath him began to shake, at first, it was almost negligible but the quaking grew more and more violent the longer it went on. The pile of berries that he had tried collecting from was now scattered all across the floor and Landon found his own balance failing him. This forced the Minccino onto all fours as he was no longer able to compete with the vicious shaking in a standing posture. The tremor had grown so strong that the rocks scattered across the ground had begun clattering together.

Landon's attention was immediately grasped by the loud sound of ripping and snapping coming from his side. A tree had been uprooted straight out of the earth and was now bearing down over him, only mere seconds away from crushing him like a bug type.

Having already expended all his energy in the days prior, the Minccino could do nothing but stare helplessly awestruck at his impending doom.

Right before the huge cylinder of bark connected with him, he felt an object strike him with incredible force from the side. Landon didn't fight the impact and instead fell with it, causing him to roll to the side and nearly avoid the log which hit the ground with a cataclysmic "THOOOOM."

A minute or so passed with Landon lying half-dead on the ground while it shook fervently. The shaking began to cease but he still laid there, attempting to make some calm out of the near-death experience.

Grave quickly broke the moment of calm, walking over to the Pokemon and picking up the club off the ground which was the tool that propelled himself from doom.

"I guess this makes me two-for-zero, how many more times do I have to save your life for you to start being a little nicer to me?"

"About a million," Landon scoffed as he pushed himself from the dirt and patted himself off.

"Well that's no way to talk to your savior," the Cubone said in a mocking tone while taking the stance of a superhero.

Landon really wanted to deck him in the face in order to put him in his place, but barely managed to quell the rising rage.

"Oh, and I probably should have mentioned the earthquakes, they've been occurring ever since I arrived here, usually they happen once or twice a week. You should probably stay somewhat mindful of them."

"You don't say," Landon said scornfully while rubbing the forming scar on his back.

"Anyways, I think you owe me something," Grave said, pulling out the bluish tablet from his helmet as it gave a soft glow.

"I think I'd be happier as a bloody smear under that tree," he replied with a deep sigh at the end.

Grave began walking off without saying another word, Landon knew that the Cubone was hoping he'd follow without instruction and thus, without a fight.

He shot his eyes around, looking at the few shrubs that surrounded him before deciding to trail the Cubone, albeit at a far distance.

…

"Aw, that's not fair," Jae said as after the group had flipped over their playing cards, Max's card being a king which beat out everyone elses by far. The only person who even came close to competition was Rose who had unveiled a six.

The Minun pushed his winnings into his pile, the game they were playing was War, one of the many things Lucus had taught him while they were aboard the ship. Max found that he was surprisingly good at it, or at least as good as one could be in a game completely about luck. He did enjoy playing these games far greater than most physical adventures as they were nicely controlled, even though most featured luck as a key aspect, there was still only so much that could go wrong. This stood at an exact opposite to real life which constantly held the anxiety of calamitous failure in front of him.

The next round began and with it, the Minun slide a face-down playing card off the stack while the others did the same. They flipped and he had beaten everyone but Jae who tied with his queen. As the rules dictate they both placed three cards next to each other and then played and flipped a fourth. Once again, Max found himself winning with a perfectly timed ace. Jae, who found himself with almost no cards remaining, grumbled, "This game sucks, how come you always win," a few embers shot out of his mouth as he spoke, one ended up landing on one of the playing cards and setting it ablaze.

Lucus quickly stood up from his seated position and stamped out the blaze, preventing it from spreading and ruining the rest of the deck.

The Scorbunny with the face of embarrassment, apologized with, "sorry I guess I should have been paying more attention to where my words went."

"It's fine," the human affirmed, "we've had a long enough break anyways." He then proceeded to pick up what remained of the deck while the others stood up from the grassy surface they had been playing on. "Now come on, let's get going and not waste time."

Max and Rose gave out a synchronized nod as usual and began to follow behind him. The Minun had only managed to take a few steps forwards before he started to feel the ground tremor beneath him. As the others looked around in sharp confusion, he could also feel something else, he could feel the floor giving way right from under him. Quickly sharp, jagged cracks formed a circle around the blue Pokemon as he was slightly jostled lower, the vibrations of the world not being his only threat. Max was being helplessly tossed around as he watched a fissure growing wider and wider around him, stopping just short of Rose. His floor turned into a platform, and one that was about to collapse, it slid down hard to the left, sending the small Minun into a dense wall of clay and dirt. After the collision, Max fell onto the sinking ground, his side hurting like hell from the blunt impact. Before he could even make sense of anything but pain, the entire sinkhole caved in beneath him. He was now free-falling towards what was sure to be certain death, with no one to stop him but the hard floor. Only moments later he collided with the ground, his body recoiling up a few inches before gravity punished him again.

Somehow though, when everything settled and the world ceased to move, he found he was still alive. The Minun feared the few moments that were to come, if he was granted one miracle by having his life spared, there would be no way he could expect to still be in one piece. The only thing was, the endless agony he was awaiting never came, in fact, the only thing he felt out of the ordinary was the slight, blunt pain running across his side.

_"But… how," _was the only thing that coursed through his mind. Max pushed himself off the hard floor below him, able to walk and move just fine. A fair amount of light came in through the wide hole he fell through which allowed him to see somewhat clearly. Even if the impact wasn't enough to finish him, the ground was covered by sharp jagged bits of rock that should have left at least some mark on his fur.

"Hey! Hey Max," he heard being yelled from above him.

The Minun shot his head up to see Rose gleaming over the rim of the hole and looking straight down.

He saw the red Pokemon pull away from the edge and heard her again in a muffled tone, "... yeah, he seems alright… I'm not sure… OK, I'll tell him…"

"Max," he heard shouted expectedly from above. "Will you be OK in there for a bit, Lucus has some rope he just needs to untangle it."

He nodded his head even though he wasn't sure if she'd even be able to notice the gesture from this far down. Rose must've though because she once again exited his line of sight.

Max used the downtime to observe the pitfall he was residing in. Several things struck him as odd about the trench. For one, the circular walls were almost perfectly smooth and didn't look like anything a Pokemon would make, or at least none that he knew off. There was also the entrance of a cave that cut into the walls of his cylindrical entrapment. Despite his inability to see more than a few inches into it, an unsettling eerie feeling filled him whenever he looked in itsf direction.

"Look out below down there," he heard be echoed from above as a cable quickly fell from the surface, just falling short of touching the gray stone beneath him. This was quickly followed with, "Alright we're coming down now, stay clear of the rope."

Max watched as Lucas leaned over the edge to clip his harness onto the cable. The human then quickly dropped himself over the edge, holding Rose in his left side as he carefully scaled down the rock surface.

After a few moments, they landed down beside him, Rose quickly leaving Lucas' side and running over to his own. The Plusle was not shy towards embracing him, trapping his arms against his side as she squeezed him with vigor.

Once he was released, the Minun found himself stumbling back, having relied on her support just a little too much. Max managed to regain his balance before he tripped onto the ground but was now left to staring at Rose with flustered embarrassment, hopping his accidental escape didn't come off as rude to her.

He wasn't granted a lot of time to dwell on this because Lucas firmly gripped his shoulder and started shining a bright light into his eyes. He was then spun around sharply, feeling the skin of the human running across his back and side before the human finally released his grasp. Max found himself staggering back again, this time by choice.

"Apart from a bruise on your side, you look perfectly healthy which is somewhat surprising given what just happened, but I guess we shouldn't look a gift Ponyta in the mouth." Lucas paused for a moment before something seemed to attract his attention his the direction of the cave.

"You guys see that too right," the human, approaching the hollowed passage while piercing its darkness with a flashlight.

"Yeah," squeaked Max lightly in reply, despite his low position on the ground being obscured by stalactites, he could still see the shimmering of a few small objects reflecting the beams of the flashlight.

Max stood back while the human moved forwards, carefully maneuvering himself through the spiky corridor. The Minun only decided to follow suit once he noticed Rose go ahead with following Lucas.

He walked slowly and carefully through the chasm because, despite the other two having already moved up, the eerie feeling of the place maintained itself in his mind. Once he caught up, the objects which were producing the glare presented themselves willingly to the flashlight. It was a short trail of glass shards that lead up to a corroded metal door that had a tiny rectangular spot where a glass pane should have been.

All three of them looked at each other in a bit of confusion, Max knowing they must be just as confused as he was to what a building was doing in this of all places.

"I think this is some kind of bunker or something," Lucas said, peering through the smashed out window, "it looks like it's almost all concrete and this door doesn't look like it is willing to budge easily."

That seemed to make enough sense to Max, and if that was the case it's really not their business to be messing around with it, even if it does appear to be far past its usefulness. "I- I think we should leave, it really doesn't seem like a good idea to stick around."

"I think I can agree with you there, come on Rose lets get out of here, Jae is waiting topside at the rope."

"Aww," the Plusle remarked, "but what if there's something cool inside, don't you want to find out what's in there to explore?"

"Not if it belongs to someone else who could be somewhere around here just waiting to ruin the day of some would-be intruders."

"I dun-know it looks pretty abandoned to me…"

"That may be the case but we can't just assu-" his lecturing was brought to a halt by the sound of a metallic creature's screeching which caused both of the electric creature's ears to shoot to the top of their head.

Rose was quick to move on this opportunity, blurting out, "See, there could be an injured Pokemon inside and they could need our help!"

"I guess that is true but how do you assume we get past this door, it doesn't look like it's willing to give way to a simple Pokemon attack."

Rose's ears lowered at this before she looked around a bit and spotted something that restored her ambition. The Plusle moved to a heavily corroded vent at the very right edge of the concrete wall, the shaft was about half the height of her. A bright sparkle emanated from her hands for a brief moment, which resulted in the brittle metal of grate shattering from the intense electrical input.

"Come-on Max, we can get in through here," she shouted happily towards the Minun.

Max on the other hand, wasn't feeling too excited about the endeavor, his natural disposition towards anything foreign preventing him from feeling sound at mind towards entering the potentially hazardous place. "_There's no way I'm gonna let her go alone though," _he thought to himself in an attempt to psych his mind up.

Rose had already started crawling through the tight shaft, disappearing around a corner quickly, leaving Max with just Lucas, who he looked towards and saw the human having a look of uncertainty in his eyes.

"Ok, I'm through, you can come on Max," Rose echoed from the other side of the wall.

Getting onto all fours the Minun began crawling his way through the ventilation shaft, taking note of the trail of water leaking throughout it. After going past a corner and up a slight incline, he found himself tumbling out of the tight space and into a long concrete corridor with a metal floor.

Max looked at Rose who was standing beside him and providing a smile as well as enlightening the room with a red sparkle from her hands. Max quickly picked himself up from the cold steel floor and into his natural standing position. He looked around and saw that they were indeed on the other side of the door, in a corridor that was lined with several metallic cupboards and cabinets, all damaged or ruined in some way. The hallway also appeared to exit out to a larger room in the distance. The strangest thing about the place was how it felt alive, he could sense electricity traveling through the walls. He couldn't read too far into this as Rose had already started moving forward and the last thing Max wanted to be was left alone in this place.

They both made their way down the hall, Max tried not to creep himself out by concocting theories of this odd shelter while Rose looked more and more intrigued with every step. Once they reached the exit of the passage, they both saw openings to three rooms, albeit only one was actually accessible as the other two had doors that were in a far past usable state. The room also contained a plethora of bland furniture and appliances that weren't in any better condition than the rest of the room.

They only been in the room for a few moments when a mechanic whirring sound echoed from deeper in the building, followed immediately by the same screech from earlier.

"Don't worry we're coming to help," Rose shouted, an action that filled Max with fear as he still was far from certain they were alone in this place and if something else was here, they definitely knew of their presence now.

This horror in the Minun's mind came true as a floating, all-black creature recklessly hovered into the room, slamming itself against the walls of the building as it rapidly tried to move around. Max recognized it instantly as being similar to the creatures from the temple, albeit this one was amalgamated slightly into a different shape. Along with this, several small machines orbited it, perfectly avoiding contact with the creature while firing a small bolt of electricity at it every few seconds.

Rose crackled some electricity out of her cheeks, probably in an attempt to scare the thing off. Max, on the other hand, saw the beast was in pain and couldn't even keep itself from slamming into any surfaces, much less attack them.

Only a few moments of the slim, white and black objects suffering continued until it fainted and fell static onto the ground, the drones that had been circling it quickly flew through the one open door and disappeared into the darkness.

"That was… odd," Rose said in a confused tone. She then walked up to the unmoving creature, which failed to resemble a Pokemon in any way, shape, or form. "What is this thing," she spoke out to Max who could only grant a shrug in reply.

With not much left to do they headed deeper into the facility through the only path that they could which ended up leading into another long corridor, this one lined with closed metal doors on both sides. A few at the very back were opened, however, granting them a path to go. One, in particular, stood out to the Pokemon as light flooded out the slight opening into it. The doorway in was a very tight fit but they both managed to squeeze through with a significant amount of wiggling.

The inside of this room bore a resemblance to the operations room of a Poke-center, a place Max had only seen once in his life but recognized it nonetheless.

The only thing that stood out as odd in the room was a row of computers on the counter against the wall. Most of them were powered off except for two on opposite ends of the counter, both lighten up with a green luminescent screen.

"Hey what's that," Rose said while looking directly at the PC's which Max had noticed moments prior. The Plusle hopped up onto the counter, followed shortly by Max, both of which looked at the screens with intrigue.

One of the displays showed a long, almost complete bar, slowly filling and surrounded by text that neither Pokemon was capable of reading due to their lack of understanding on most written language.

The other computer, however, was purely text, Max felt it looked important but couldn't make heads or tails of it.

The same mechanical whirring and screech played again, this time it came from right beside Max, causing him to jump and tumble off of the counter.

The fallen Pokemon rubbed the side of his head of torso while Rose climbed down and stood next to his side. Max quickly and shakily spoke his piece, "Can we please leave here now, I think the noise we heard was just from that machine and I have a really bad feeling about this place."

"I think I can agree to that," the Plusle replied in a playful tone, "we should also tell Lucas about what was in here, he might know what it's used for."

Max nodded his head and they left the facility without any interruption and outside they brought up the creature, the drones, and the operation room to the human who stood just as confused about it as they were. As per Max's request, they did return back to the surface hastily and rejoined up with Jae. From here they once again began on their foot journey through the jungle.

…

Deep underground in a nondescript bunker, an alarm goes off, this in itself didn't cause a commotion, but what it sensed was far from expected.

A scientist wearing a white lab coat rushes through a set of automatic doors, holding a set of paperwork in hand. He meets with a tall, sturdily built man wearing a dark purple suit that stands in hard contrast to the clinical white design of his office.

"Sir, we have an issue, several of the motion detectors in Lambda activated, we didn't think it was just one of the Unknown so we tapped into the cameras and spotted this."

The scientist pulled a sheet of paper containing several printed out pictures from surveillance footage, each containing two mice Pokemon running throughout the facility.

"I should inform you that Plusles and Minuns are not native to the island so that mea-"

"I can already take a fucking hint as to what it means, either someone sticking their nose where they shouldn't, or some idiot just got himself into a load shit, either way, what are the options to remedy this loose end?"

"Well normally I'd advise doing nothing, those Pokemon were far from a threat to the operation and even if this person did suspect something, their weeks from the mainland, we'd be fine to keep operating as we are. However, the sensor did pick up something that I think will interest you greatly."

The scientist placed a pile of papers onto his superior's desk, the man casually skims through them before cracking a slight smile.

"There is already a team waiting for your order to commit the interdiction. We don't have information on how vital the Pokemon themselves are to reproducing the signal, but we will try to capture them alive."

"Excellent, maybe you're not such a useless cunt after all. Go ahead with the operation and let's see what secrets our little friends are hiding."

**Author's Note: … end scene. Looks like Max and the rest are far from alone, and even further from safe, on the seemingly deserted island. Even more so they seem to possess something that is of interest to this other group, how will it play out? Well, you're going to have to tune in next time!**


	6. The Full Price

**Chapter 6: The Full Price**

"This is Atlas to Epsilon, we have reached the location and are now preparing to engage," said a man fully clad in black military gear as he exited the black electric off-roader which had brought him to the destination.

"Roger that you are clear to engage, remember we need the Pokemon back alive, try to maintain minimal casualties," a voice replied from his head-mounted radio.

The human stepped out into the pitch-black night, turning on his night vision helmet and moving to the trunk of the vehicle, pulling a long rectangular case out of it and unclipping two latches on each end. A metallic gray dart gun in the shape of an AR-15 was unveiled, along with several magazines loaded with tranquilizing darts. The man loaded and cocked the gun and slid it into a sash on his back before shutting the trunk.

The voice from his headset once again started playing, "a tracking drone chased the targets from Sigma? to a cave only a few dozen meters from this point, you have been cleared to take advantage of any outside assistance. It once again must be stressed that the Pokemon you may encounter are not believed to be a threat and must be taken alive at all cost."

"Roger that," he scoffed, he's never botched a mission up before, so why the command keeps treating him like a rookie is beyond him, but he'll just once again prove his effectiveness and professionalism and maybe they might just give him a position that isn't patrolling some random island in the middle of nowhere.

The agent then pulled a jet black Pokeball from his waste and deployed it, spawning with a bright blue beam a Crowbat that hovered silently in the air next to him.

"OK buddy," he talked quietly to the Pokemon, "I want you to stay back just in case I get into trouble, if you see something go down I want you to use your confuse ray on anything that moves. Don't go too hard on it though, the last thing we want is one of the Pokemon to kill themselves while they're in a daze."

"Crow," the flying Pokemon gave in understanding.

"Let's get this over with, should be a quick and easy job," the human said while approaching his target, his companion staying a couple of meters behind at all times.

At the cave, he saw a small fire burning lightly with two stretched out shadows protruding from it. He took his weapon off of safety with a 'click' as he got closer, keeping the sights aimed in front at all times.

In just a few fluid moments he saw three living creatures sleeping and launched a dart straight into their necks, ensuring that they wouldn't wake up anytime soon.

"Almost too easy," he whispered to himself, wondering why command would give such a seemingly idiot-proof job to him.

"Coming in command this is Atlas, the task has been completed without error, one young adult male, one male Scorbunny, and one female Plusle have been neutralized, awaiting further instructions."

"Epsilon here, you are a negative for wrap up, your objective requires at least one additional Minun for retrieval. Over."

Before he could even think about this statement, the operator heard a leaf crunch far behind him and immediately placed his crosshair on the source of the sound. A Minun had just walked in on him, no doubt the other he had to knock out. This one, however, proved to at least put up some resistance unlike the others as he turned and started running in the opposite direction on seeing him. He fired a dart from his weapon, which barely grazed the creature's leg and just cut the limb instead of implanting itself. This worked to his advantage as the Pokemon stumbled, allowing him to hit the Minun straight in the neck with a second tranquilizer.

He had to admit, a small part of himself felt bad for the small being, as he watched it struggle to flee under the noxious effects of his projectile before collapsing fully onto the ground. Despite this, he knew a job was a job and he had bills to pay and a family to feed.

"Atlas calling in again, add one male Minun to the list of neutralized targets. Over."

"Roger that, if no other targets present themselves you are free to bring them back to command. The higher-ups say they only need the Pokemon, whatever happens with the human is solely up to you. Over."

He knew what that meant and swallowed from the idea, even though it had been phrased as a choice, there was only one right solution to this problem and he hated it. Then again he was more than aware of what happens to those who break protocol.

The agent pulled a small silenced pistol from his belt and enter the cave aiming it at the heart of the unconscious human and with pulled back the trigger, closing his eyes as the gun let out a sharp "click."

He had forgotten to change the fire select. Of course, he did. This only made it harder for him to carry out the deed as when he finally readied the gun to fire he found his hands were trembling, something he thought he had gotten rid of a long time ago.

_"Maybe… maybe this one can live," _he thought to himself, realizing the lose-lose he found himself in. _"No, if command found out, I'd be reprimanded back to a recruit if I'm lucky, and if I'm not…"_ he let out a huge gulp, his throat tightening as this issue only grew more complex in his head. _"It's not like this is the first time, one or a hundred murders, it's all the same."_ He had finally brought himself to a conclusion although one he did not like, he aimed the pistol, his hands shaking heavily and pulled the trigger once again, this time the gun giving off a "tick" noise instead. He refused to look at what he had done. Instead, he picked up the bodies of the three Pokemon, placed them into cages in the back of his car and drove off, hoping he would never have to think about that decision ever again.

…

_[Flashback]_

Max was sitting ideally on a tree stump as a cold breeze made him shiver, but this failed to bother him as his mind was currently being occupied by his own thoughts. Only being partially distracted by Rose who was pacing in front of him.

"Come on Max, we can't just stay in this forest forever, winter is coming and we have to find somewhere to stay."

His focus elsewhere, he didn't give the Plusle the slightest bit of acknowledgment and instead kept his head pointed down towards the dirt. He honestly wouldn't mind sitting here until he froze to death.

"There's a human town not too far from here. I heard they're a lot safer for Pokemon then they once were, I'm sure we could find someplace to keep warm for at least a few days."

Max had heard the same thing from a few of the Pokemon that had passed by them, albeit only in passing. Apparently, the humans had a war, whatever that was, lead by a very far away place called Unova. The people there won and enforced a new law that affected everyone: Pokemon could no longer be forcibly captured. In fact, even the owning of Pokeballs was now illegal. Now Pokemon everywhere could freely leave their dens and colonies and find a new life besides humans without needing to fear being caught and subjugated. Of course, this doesn't stop Pokemon that choose to live with humans, and in fact, many still enjoy fighting beside and learning with the creatures. This did scare him in a way he knew it shouldn't, his parents had always warned him never to stray near a trainer, and now the world had changed so much.

The fact he had thought about his parents made him from a fist with his paw as he started to tear up.

"Aw, don't cry Max, we don't have to go anywhere until you're ready. I know humans can be pretty scary, it's not like anyone is going to force you to talk with one. I- er we both know that it's going to start snowing soon and the temperature will begin to drop fast and neither of us wants to be out here when that happens."

This is a speech Max had heard a million times before or at least a variant of it, and just as always, it failed to help him cheer up at all.

…

The first thing that Max felt when he woke up was the sensation of needing to throw up. He tried to stand up but hit his head on something metallic, adding a headache to his list of problems. He then tried raising himself on all fours, this time achieving it unobstructed. The Minun appeared to be in a metal cage of some sort that was only a little bit larger than he was. Through a set of tightly grouped metal bars in front, he could see a brightly lit white tiled wall with a counter pushed against it. On the table, the surface was various objects that all looked very technical in nature.

Max tried pushing lightly against the metal bars and, unsurprisingly, they didn't budge even slightly.

"Rose…?" He let out lightly in a hopeless tone, pleading that he wasn't alone in this strange place.

"Max? Max!" A familiar voice shouted excitedly from his left.

His mood immediately shot through the roof knowing that he wasn't alone. "Rose is that you? Where are we?"

"Yes Max it's me and I don't have even the slightest clue," her voice started to change to a tone of slight worry, "I've tried attacking this cage and all it does is reflect the moves right back at me. I don't think there's any way to leave…"

This, to say the least, disheartened the Minun. The obvious explanation to his current situation was that he had been captured by humans, but that answer came with its own slew of problems. It seemed that in his current position he had nothing to do but wait and hope a solution presents itself, it's not like he has the ability to phase through metal or anything.

Somewhere between a few minutes and a few hours past by before anything had happened but, of course, this wasn't going to be the case for much longer.

_"Tee-hee," _Max heard come from seemingly nowhere, altering him and causing his head to dart around to find the source of the sound.

_"It looks like I'm a bit late, but late is better than never!" _The voice continued in a whimsical feminine tone. _"Time traveling and dimension-hopping is hard work don't you know! I guess now would be as good a time as any to introduce myself though."_

Suddenly a floating green figure materialized itself behind the bars of his cage, its giant blue eyes staring straight at him. In fear, Max shot to the back of his cage, pressing his body as far away from the thing as he could.

"You know it's not nice to call someone an 'it' or a 'thing.' Most Pokemon have names you know."

The nonchalance of the creature eased Max slightly, but he still didn't want to get anywhere near the strange Pokemon.

"I know this isn't the most ideal way to meet but you could at least give me a chance before depicting me as a monster in your head."

It only just now crossed his mind that the green being was ready his thoughts which only furthered his uneasiness.

"I guess I should apologize, I can see how one could get scared by a stranger appearing out of thin air. I'll make it up to you by telling you my name, I'm Celebi and I get that your name is Max?"

The Minun opened his mouth a little, trying to force some speech out but found himself at a complete loss for words.

The green Pokemon slowly floated away from the bars of his cage and flew rapidly around the room he was in, staring at everything with a childlike curiosity.

"Man, you really got yourself into a predicament here, that will make things a lot harder for me but I think I can help you solve all this."

Max finally managed to find something to say, "P- please… who are you?"

"Ah still confused I see, I guess that's understandable. As I said, I'm Celebi, time-traveling extraordinaire."

Max just blinked at her, this didn't help him understand what was going on at all.

"Apparently, at least according to the legendaries, there's something unusual happening in your reality and it's revolving around _**you**_. So I came as fast as I could to figure it out but I guess that wasn't fast enough," she gave out a bit of sorrow with this last statement. "I guess I wasn't entirely too late as I did get to mostly fix your little mistake in the Unknown Temple. You should really know better than to wander into strange places. I also protected you during your little fall, I do wonder how you've managed to survive this long."

Max didn't know who this Pokemon was or why she was talking down to him, but at least she didn't appear to be an immediate threat.

"Can you… help me- er… us out of here," he managed to ask, making his only current desire clear.

"Hmm, I really shouldn't be interacting with anything in your reality, you know the Butterfree effect and all that. Just communicating with you is going to be a big enough headache to resolve, but the situation really is dire enough to allow it."

Rose spoke up from beside him, sounding somewhat worried, "Max who are you talking too, are you feeling alright?"

Celebi immediately spoke up, somewhat embarrassed, "oh I should have mentioned, you're the only one that sees me. Like I mentioned, anyone or anything I interact with causes ripples in time, something I'll have to personally stop so they don't get out of hand and collapse your entire universe. It's a pain to resolve so I hope you understand why I'd want to avoid detection."

"Yeah Rose, I'm fine… my head just feels a little fuzzy," he replied, hoping this Pokemon wasn't a hallucination and that he wasn't starting to lose it.

"I can assure you I'm as real as it gets, here I'll even prove," the Pokemon said with an air of defense in her speech. She then vanished into thin air before appearing inside the cage with Max a moment later. This, understandably, frightened the shit out of the Minun who jumped up and slammed his head into the metal roof.

"Geez, calm down I'm not going to harm you, in fact, quite the opposite. The fairy-like Pokemon then stretched out one of her fingers and flicked his nose with it, causing a slight pain and proving her permeance."

"OK, your real I guess…" Max said while protecting his snout with one paw. "But what do you want with me?"

The green Pokemon flickered to outside the cage and started hovering in place. "You really don't catch on too fast, do you? I'll be honest I'm not too sure what your importance is yet, I just know that you're vital to something."

Max just stared blankly at the Pokemon once again, still not following where she's heading with this.

"Anyways I highly doubt you're going to be much use locked up in a place like this, so I came to help in between my investigation. I can teleport you straight out of here and to somewhere safe and far away if you'd like."

Max thought this over for a second but immediately reached an obstacle with this proposition, "can you teleport her to," the Minun asked while pointing to his left.

"This is exactly what I was afraid of. I'm sorry but I can't do that, teleporting you, and trust me you're a special exception on your own, will already cause a whole slew of problems. Attempting to manipulate someone other than you in this timeline could have disastrous effects."

"So then what…" Max asked, not really how this Pokemon could assist him and Rose if she can't actually _do_ anything to anyone but him.

"I could at least teleport you outside of this cage, but if I do that it would be a while before I could safely do it again. Still, it would be better than you staying in there, waiting for whatever you're in that cage for."

"I guess you're right, go ahead."

"There we go, now we're getting somewhere. This may hurt a little… or a lot, it's been a long time since I've teleported anyone else."

"Wait what-" he tried to get out but was cut off by a purple glow forming around him, slowly heating up his body and becoming thicker and thicker before he could no longer see through it. The next thing he knew he was on the cold metal floor a few feet in front of the table his cage had been on.

"Looks like I still got it even after all these eons. Anyways, I gotta go figure this whole mess out, try not to get yourself killed in the meantime, Ciao."

With that, before Max could even get a word in edgewise, she had vanished into thin air, leaving the small mouse to his own devices in the small room.

"How- How did you get out," Rose utters, her head barely visible from his lower point of view. "I guess it doesn't really matter just help me get out of here too."

Max nodded his head, although he had no idea how he would go about accomplishing the task.

"Try looking on the counter behind you," the Plusle instructed, "there are some important-looking things on it."

Not having any reason to disobey, the Minun hopped up onto the table, looking around at the papers and clipboards laid all over. One thing did catch his eye, a large remote with a few huge buttons.

Max tried pressing the smallest and topmost one, a green light lit up on the side of the device and he could feel electricity start surging through it. He then pushed in the center most button and he heard a click come from one of the cages, shortly followed by the opening of its bars. Having found the solution to his problem, he activated the final switch which unlocked Rose's cell.

The Plusle quickly hopped out and onto the floor, stretching her body and looking towards Max. "Thanks," she replied in a calm tone, "but now how do we get out of here?"

They both looked around, the room they were in had no windows and only a single closed sliding door out. Rose, however, was quick to notice a ventilation shaft opening in one of the corners of the room.

Max watched as Rose walked up to and first attempted to pry the metal grate off of it but to say this was futile would be an understatement. She then tried shocking the obstacle but as the lightning bolt connected with the alloy, it reflected back and fried the Plusle causing her to stagger back a few steps before regaining her witts.

"Are you ok," Max asked quietly.

"Yeah, but whatever this is made of mist be the same thing the cage was constructed out of and can reflect the electricity straight back. Anyways, I don't think we're getting through here."

"Then I guess the only other way is the door but there's no way we could get that…"

"I mean we can at least try, the door seems to be powered by electricity, so maybe there's a way we can use that to open it."

"But the door looks like it's made of the same exact white metal, we can't really do anything to it."

"That may be true but…" Rose looked around a bit before perking up and pointing towards a black rectangular device on the wall next to their escape. "Look at that, it must control the opening of the barrier in some way, and it's not made out of the electro-proof stuff."

"So what are you thinking," the Minun asked.

"Here, let me show you," she said before proceeding to launch a second thunderbolt from her body, the shock being concentrated where the keypad was.

The device began smoking for a few seconds before giving a sharp electronic beep and shutting off. Right after this, the door slid open, revealing a white hallway, colored just the same as the room they were in.

"Well, I guess that worked better than I thought it would," Rose said while taking a proud stance. "So let's get out of here, not like we have much reason to stick around," she communicated while already starting to leave the room.

Max followed closely behind, entering into a massive hallway with dozens of rooms on each side and bright fluorescent lights shining above them.

They weren't allowed to analyze the space for long because soon after a hatch slid open above them and out flew two small metallic drones that hovered at eye level in front of them. One had a long tube attached to the bottom which was pointed straight at Max while the other had what looked like a camera, fired a laser that traced the outline of his body.

Max didn't budge from this, largely out of fear while Rose took a few steps back and started to crackle the electricity in her cheeks.

"Stop, stop," a deep voice with a thick Russian accent played from behind the duo. The drones appeared to respond to this and flew up and towards the scientist which had given the command. The man who had spoken was tall and burly, wielding a bright orange beard from his chin and a bald head. "Aren't you two an escape artists," he said with irregular breaks in between words, seemingly struggling to make English sounds. "Do not worry, there is no trouble for you two here," the man recited while sounding oddly cheerful. "We were just about to begin introductions with you, come follow."

Both of the Pokemon looked at each other, unsure of what to make of this man. Neither really saw much reason to make an enemy out of him so they both did as he asked and walked behind him.

"I will be running a few tests on you in a short time but do not worry my friends, it will not be anything painful, should be short than you are on your way. Also, you can call Nikolov. Why not introduce yourself now, short on the tongue," the man asked before giving out a hearty belly laugh at the supposed joke.

It was obvious to Max what the joke was towards, Poking fun at how most humans can't intrinsically understand Pokemon. Only through spending a long time with a Pokemon and 'bonding' with them or the help of psychic powers, could a human be able to comprehend any individual Pokemon's words. So to him, they were essentially mute.

While following behind the human they passed through several sets of doors and turned at several intersections in the halls, this place was a labyrinth.

"Here we are," Nikolov said while pulling a key card out of his lab coat and sliding it through a scanner next to a wide door. "I'm sad that I will be leaving you here but we will surely meet again friends." The scientist then motioned for the pair to enter the room, which they did only to have the door behind them instantly slide shut.

The room was narrow but long, with the walls painted a dark blue instead of the traditional white and a large chunk of the right wall was made of a heavily tinted glass. Before Max could inspect anymore he found himself being picked up by someone and attempted to struggle which proved to be futile.

A masculine voice above him spoke, "just play along and we won't hurt you."

Max didn't know how to take this but didn't really want to worsen his situation by angering his captor.

"Ow, Arceus damn it this one shocked me," a different voice said beside Max. The Minun turned his head to see Rose as she dropped to the floor and immediately jumped up to her feet while the human behind her flailed his arm around in pain.

"Permission to neutralize the angry one," said someone from across the room.

"Permission granted, we only need one right now," a voice coming from a much younger sounding man sitting in a chair in the center of the space replied.

The guard on the other end raised a large tool he was carrying and launched a dart from it, impacting Rose in the neck who tried to pull it out before collapsing onto the ground.

Needless to say, this only panicked Max more who started up his struggle once again from the arms of his captor.

"Calm down, your pal here isn't hurt just unconscious, now do as we ask to make sure it stays that way," said the sitting man.

And, once again Max had found himself unwillingly relaxing, trying to keep his cool as the human holding him placed him on a chair across a table in the center of the room.

Rose's limp body was placed next to him on the human-sized chair he was placed on which strangely helped to calm him down.

"Alright, now that everyone here is where they need be, I'm going to ask you a series of questions, nothing too personal, and nothing you should have any problem answering truthfully. My friend here will allow me to understand you, and also tell if your lying or not."

Max looked to the side of the table at an Espeon sitting idly.

"Firstly, what are the names of you and your friend here."

Max didn't want to tell these people anything, he was already getting all sorts of bad vibes from them and this place, but they were expecting a response and he would need to give one.

"Uh… Max and Rose," he answered hesitantly.

The human proceeded to write a suspiciously large amount down onto a clipboard. "Now tell me, what are you doing on this island?"

"We… um- got shipwrecked and landed here. I've been here for at least a few days."

"Good, Good," the man said as he continued to write. "Here's another one, where did you get this from," he inquired while placing a small circular object on the table and sliding it towards the Minun.

The object turned out to be the Pokemon sized compass, something he hadn't even noticed the disappearance of. Max was unsure of if to tell them of the temple or not as he still wasn't quite sure if it was even real or not. "I- I- found it in a long clearing, I tripped on it and that's how I saw it."

Once again the man began writing but this time took an abrupt break to talk, "my friend here tells me your telling the truth which is good, but that you're leaving out a few important details. She's got it covered this time, but try to be a bit more descriptive next time. Now I want you to keep that and wear it like you've been doing, don't be shy, put it on."

Max did as he asked, although confused and feeling more than his fair share of fear, and places the object back around his neck.

"Now can you recall back for me when you were intruding on our property. There was a small period before you entered it where we picked up something odd coming straight from your location, did anything odd occur to you during this rough time period?"

_"Right before entering the lab… That was when the quake started and I fell down the sinkhole, I should have died or at least taken a beating but came out mostly fine…"_

Max was about to try to explain this when he was stopped.

"Thank you, We've all heard enough now."

_"The Espeon must have been reading my thoughts, I guess that's alright this time but it really isn't that nice to know someone can tell what you're going to say before you say it."_

"Now would you mind taking up a temporary residence here until we finish getting to the bottom of this enigma you've created?"

"Uh-"

"Great, don't worry once we're all done you'll be allowed to leave. As for now, I'm sure you won't mind being voluntarily sedated?"

"Wha- N-"

"Good to hear you being so willing to work with us. Now I'll just remind you that while you're here you automatically void any rights you have to your body and consent to any projects or research we will place you through."

Max finally realized that these people wanted to do something horrible to him and tried to get up and run away but found a needle entering his side sharply before he could even leave the chair. Night quickly overtook and he passed out before even being able to react.

"Goodnight, we'll be seeing you in the morning and hopefully you enjoy your stay here…"

**Author's note: The longest chapter yet, and quite a bit happened in it. Max and Rose seem to have fallen into something far greater than they realize and Jae's whereabouts along with all of the rest of the crew are unknown. Wanna know what happens next? Well then stick around for the next chapter!**


End file.
